writer | editor | artist
I remember discovering this poem once, which evoked that particular kind of feeling – a cross between pain, nostalgia and something else – that is akin to the feeling you get when you put your tongue into the place where your tooth used to be. This was many years ago. It was a poem by C. D. Wright…
I hope you’ll be attending GenreCon this year — it’s going to be an amazing event, with a rich and diverse program of panels, discussions, workshops, debates and other wonders. I’ll be making two ‘official’ appearances. The Joy of Writing workshop will take place from 1:30 – 5:30 pm on Friday, 11th October at the…
“Maps are essential. Planning a journey without a map is like building a house without drawings.” [Mark Jenkins, The Hard Way: Stories of Danger, Survival, and the Soul of Adventure] This is the second in a series of posts designed to help you focus your writing. Last week, your homework was designed around making an…
Not everyone wants or needs to work with a mentor, but many writers feel the need to refocus their writing practice at some point. This is the first in a series of posts that, together, will comprise a kind of DIY mentorship. The DIY mentorship isn’t designed to replace a real mentorship, which also includes…
Instructions for writing a story for a small child, as a gift. First, consider the child. Is it small and sticky, or tall and clumsy? Does it prefer pickles, or ice cream? Pants or sequins? Measure it: first, from top to bottom, second, from belly button around to belly button. Is said belly button an…
When I was staying in Amsterdam, I visited Anne Frank House. It was a quiet January morning. I arrived early and wandered through the exhibition, which includes both introductory material about Anne, her family, and the other inhabitants of the Achterhuis during the war, the attic rooms themselves, and (once you’ve left those small, dark…
I’m not a huge fan of three act structure if it’s talked about as the ONLY structure available to writers or other creators who work with narrative, or – as in this TED talk created by the educator Matthew Winkler – people say that it’s a universal mythic structure that occurs in every culture in…
Dutch writer and illustrator Marie (Rie) Cramer was born in what was then the Dutch East Indies (Java) in 1887. Her father was often at sea, and two of her older sisters were sent to school in the Netherlands in the 1890s. By 1896, however, Rie, her sister Erna, and their mother had all settled…
The foam photography museum is on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. Recently, I went there to see an exhibition of photography by Diane Arbus, the American photographer. The exhibition is laid out over several floors, with narrow stairways leading up and down between rooms. This is not a museum for anyone with mobility issues. The exhibition…